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 8

Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in

Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey)
Elcin Gok1 and Orhan Polat2
1Dokuz Eylul University, Earthquake Research and Implementation Center, Izmir
2Dokuz Eylul University, Engineering Faculty, Department of Geophysics, Izmir
Turkey

1. Introduction
Local site effects are one of the most important aspects in the assessment of seismic
hazard. Local site response can be investigated by empirical and theoretical methods.
Theoretical methods allow a detail analysis of the parameters considered in the
evaluation; however, they require information of the geological structure (Dravinski et al.,
1996). Empirical methods are based on seismic records on sites with different geological
condition from which relative amplitudes and dominant periods may be determined
directly. This approach requires of a large number of earthquakes. In regions with low
seismicity, it would be necessary to wait for a long time to obtain a complete data set. For
this reason, the use of ambient seismic noise is becoming popular as an alternative (Bard,
1998).
Recording and analyzing ambient noise is simple. A few minutes of microtremor data are
usually sufficient. Microtremors are present continuously in time and space. A single three-
component station is the only instrument required. Routine spectral techniques can be easily
applied to estimate the dominant frequency of vibration of the sedimantary structure. These
frequencies of vibration are closely related to the physical features of the site under study,
i.e., layer thicknesses, densities and wave velocities. Estimates of these frequencies are
useful to constrain the physical properties at a given site.
The Nakamura technique (Nakamura, 1989), based on the horizontal to vertical spectral
ratio (HVSR), has been commonly used to estimate the site effects. Later it has been
extended to both weak motions (Ohmachi et al., 1991; Field & Jacob, 1993, 1995); and strong
motions (Lermo & Chavez-Garcia, 1994; Theodulidis & Bard, 1995; Suzuki et al., 1995).
Lermo & Chavez-Garcia (1993) applied this technique to estimate the empirical transfer
function from the intense S-wave part of a small sample of earthquake records obtained in
three cities of Mexico. Their results showed that the HVSR can estimate the dominant
frequency at a site based on earthquake data.
Suzuki et al. (1995), using both microtremor and strong motion data in Hokkaido, Japan,
showed that the dominant frequency obtained from HVSR was in good agreement with
the predominant frequency estimated from the thickness of an alluvial layer. Lermo &
Chavez-Garcia (1993) compared transfer functions computed using the Haskell method
agreement with the HVSR. Lermo & Chavez-Garcia (1994) verified that the underlying

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226 Earthquake Research and Analysis – New Frontiers in Seismology

assumptions of Nakamura’s technique are consistent with the propagation of Rayleigh

waves.

Fig. 1. Map of Bursa. The box indicates the study area. NAFZ: North Anatolian Fault Zone,
NAFSS: Southern strand of the North Anatolian Fault Zone, EAF: East Anatolian Fault Zone.

2. Tectonic and geological setting

The region of study is surrounded by many active faults; Gemlik Fault (GF), Geyve-Iznik
Fault Zone (GIFZ), Yenişehir Fault, Bursa Fault (BF), Inonu-Eskisehir Fault Zone (IEFZ). The
main lithological units in the vicinity of Bursa are Quaternary alluvial deposits and Neogene
basement rocks. The thickness of the Quaternary deposits is larger than 300m where those
are as Neogene units vary from 50 to 200m. in Bursa basin (Imbach 1997; Topal et al., 2003).
South of Bursa, Paleozoic and methamorfic units are present. The simplified geological map
of the study area, modified from MTA (General Directory of Mineral Research and
Exploration), is shown in Figure 2.
Bursa city is located in the southern Marmara Region, characterised by significant historical
and instrumental seismicity (Figure 1). Two strong earthquakes, with maximum intensities
X and IX EMS-98, occurred in 1855. Seismicity is related with the activity of southern branch
of the NAFZ.

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Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey) 227

Alluvium, Holocen
Neogene
Paleozoic
Paleozoic, Metamorphic
Paleozoic
Fault
Microtremor Points
Accelerometric Station (BYT01)

Fig. 2. Simplified geological map of Bursa region. Black triangles indicate points of
microtremor measurements; open triangle shows the location of BYT01 station (Modified
after MTA, General Directory of Mineral Research and Expolaration).

3. Method
The microtremor HVSR method is generally used for microzonation and site responses
studies. It considers that the amplification produced by a surface layer can be estimated
from the ratio between the horizontal and vertical spectral amplitudes. This method is
known as the Nakamura’s technique.
The method supposes that microtremors are composed of Rayleigh waves which propagate
in a surface layer over a half-space (Dravinski et al., 1996; Lermo & Chavez-Garcia, 1994).
The motion at the interface between the layer and the half-space is not affected by the source
effect. Moreover, the horizontal and vertical motions at the interface have similar amplitude
due to the ellipticity of the Rayleigh waves.

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228 Earthquake Research and Analysis – New Frontiers in Seismology

Horizontal to Vertical spectral ratio is related to the ellipticity of Rayleigh waves which is
frequency dependent (Bard, 1998; Bonnefoy-Claudet et al., 2006). HVSR showes a sharp
peak at the fundamental frequency of the sediments, if there is a high impedance contrast
between the sediments and the bottom bedrock. Criticism of the HVSR method was often
related to the fact that there is no common practice for data acquisition and processing
(Mucciarelli & Gallipoli, 2001). Attempts to provide standards were only made recently
(SESAME, 2004). It is widely accepted today that the frequency of the peak of HVSR showes
the fundamental frequency of the sediments. Its amplitude depends mainly on the
impedance contrast with the bedrock and cannot be used as site amplification. Comparisons
with results of standard spectral ratio method have also shown that the HVSR peak
amplitude sometimes underestimates the actual site amplification. (Bard, 1998; Gosar &
Martinec, 2009)

4. Microtremor measurements and analyses

4.1 Instruments and data
A single seismic station was used for the microtremor measurements. It was composed of a
three-component seismometer with GPS time, the passing band of this system in DC to 100
Hz. Our sampling was 100 sps, reducing the frequency to the band below 50 Hz. We
recorded data at 22 different points. Record duration was set to 30 minutes. The mean
distance between recording sites is approximately 2 km. The sensors were buried in the
ground at each site.

4.2 HVSR analyses

Microtremor measurements were made at 22 sites (Figure 2). Their locations were selected
to avoid the influence of trees, sources of monochromatic noise, rivers, and strong
topographic features. HVSR analysis was performed following SESAME (2004). Recorded
time series were visually inspected to identify possible inaccurate measurements and
transient pulses. Each record was split in windows between 15 to 30 s long %5 overlapping
windows for which amplitude spectra in a range 0.5–20 Hz were computed using a cosine
taper with 10% smoothing and Konno & Ohmachi smoothing with a constant of 40 (Konno,
& Ohmachi, 1998). HVSR was then computed as the average of both horizontal component
spectra divided by the vertical spectrum for each window. After produced HVSR dominant
frequency and maximum amplification were determined. Figures 3 and 4 show an example
of the results.
The smallest dominant frequency values (≤2 Hz) were obtained in the northern part of the
basin, covered by the thick Neogene and Quaternary sediments (points 19, 21, 22 in Figure 3
and 13, 14, 12 in Figure 4). Frequencies in the range 2 to 4 Hz were observed on Paleozoic
sediments of moderate thickness (points 08, 09, 17 in Figure 3). Dominant frequencies larger
than 5 Hz was obtained on Paleozoic and metamorphic rocks (06, 07 in Figure 3 and 04, 05 in
Figure 4). These values are characteristic for most of the Bursa area.
In some cases the microtremor measurements were unable to provide an estimate of
dominant frequency (Figure 4). The possible reasons are: wide peak, two or more peaks in a
spectrum, flat spectral ratio and very small amplitude of the peak.
Figure 4a shows an example of wide peak that can not be associated to a resonant frequency.
Probably due to the several impedance contrasts at various depths, HVSR sometimes
resulted in two or more peaks with similar amplitudes. In Figure 4b, the two peaks are well

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Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey) 229

separated in frequency, so it can be the boundary between soft sediments and rock is related
to the peak at 1.3 Hz. The second peak at 5 Hz may be related to Paleozoic rocks. However,
in the case shown in Figure 4c, there are two peaks of the same amplitude at 1 Hz and 13

Fig. 3. Examples of HVSR for the measurements points (06, 07, 08, 09, 17, 19, 21 and 22)

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230 Earthquake Research and Analysis – New Frontiers in Seismology

Fig. 4. Some examples of microtremor measurements for which determination of the

dominant frequency may be problematic (a) wide peak, (b) two peaks, (c) artificial source of
noise, (d) artificial noise which frequency can be determined, (e) almost flat spectral ratio, (f)
group of peaks.
Hz. In such cases, we were unable to identify which one corresponds to the most significant
geological boundary. Another example (Figure 4d) shows two different peaks at the 1.2 Hz
frequency and 5 Hz. Artificial noise is seen on the first peak but the real peak of HVSR is at a
higher frequency (5 Hz). In some cases, we compared the dominant peak frequency with
that from neighbouring measurements with more clear peaks. For some measurements, we
obtained almost flat spectral ratios (Figure 4e) with maximum amplitudes smaller than 1.5
Hz. We found no clear peak for this point but it may be correlated with Paleozoic rocks. In
Figure 4f, two peaks are observed around 1 Hz. The shape of this HVSR curve indicates that
the peak is at a similar frequency, but since it is contaminated with artificial noise, it cannot
be accurately identified.The amplitudes of the peaks of HVSR are mostly in the range 1–2
Hz in Figure 5. Only in a few cases they are larger than 5 Hz.

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Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey) 231

Microtremor Points

5
Amplitude of the peak

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
Frequency of the peak

Fig. 5. Amplitude vs. frequency graph of HVSR peaks

4.3 Time-dependent HVSR

The common procedure to compute the HVSR spectral ratio relies on average amplitude
spectra of the three components of motion. Some researchers such as Almendros et al.,
(2004) have suggested that this aproach may lead to errors. Perturbations of the wavefield
may occur during the recording period and be recorded together with the microtremor data.
Usually, these transients are easily identified in the spectra, and the analysis can be
performed using only on data windows free of perturbations in order to obtain reliable
results. In these cases, artificial peaks appear in the HVSR (Figure 4). These peaks affect the
spectral ratio and produce inaccurate results. Because of this problem, time-dependent
HVSR has also been used to estimate spectral ratios. This approach consists of compiling
HVSR to successive data windows along the traces. This procedure creates several HVSR
functions that can be represented a two-dimensional contour plots versus frequency and
time. This plot, that is called ratiogram, represents the evolution of the HVSR in the same
way that a spectrogram represents the evolution of the spectrum versus frequency and time.
(Almendros et al., 2004)
In this study, we selected a window of 25 s and slided it at intervals of 5 s along the traces.
This length is suitable for the numerical fast Fourier transform (FFT) algorithm for
frequencies larger than 0.5 Hz. For each window we calculated the amplitude spectra of the
three components using an FFT algorithm, and smoothed it using a cosine window.
Frequency-dependent window lengths have also been used keeping a constant number of
cycles (Kind et al., 2005). We computed the HVSR separately for all time intervals and
plotted them. An example is as a fuction of time shown in Figure 6.
Three component microtremor data was shown in Figure 6a. Using the standard technique,
average HVSR are computed from individual windows (Figure 6b). We observed the
presence of a dominant peak at about 1.2 Hz and we can conclude that the site produces
amplification for this frequency. Figure 6c shows the time-dependent HVSR which is
stationary, at least during particular time periods. An average HVSR could be obtained by
stacking the HVSRs.

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232 Earthquake Research and Analysis – New Frontiers in Seismology

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. 6. Example of the application of the time dependent HVSR method (a) three-component
microtremor data, (b) average HVSR using standard procedure, (c) ratiogram representing
the HVSR as a function of frequency and time.

5. HVSR results using earthquake data

Lermo and Chavez-Garcia (1993) presented that the Nakamura (1989) technique could be
applied to the S-wave part of the earthquakes, and the HVSR ratios provided amplitude of
the soil deposits. We applied the HVSR ratios of the S-wave window for the recorded

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Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey) 233

ground motions to sites in the BYT01 for site effect estimation. The Fourier spectrum of
ground motion for each event was obtained using the HVSR method.
Earthquake records from an accelerographic station (Figure 2) deployed in the city have
been obtained. We used them to compare the results obtained from microtremor survey. A
location of the station is given in Table 1.
Altitude
Station Coordinates Recorder Type Recorder Serial Nr.
(m)
40.18240N
193 Etna 5035
29.12960E
Table 1. Coordinates of Station BYT01
This station has recorded four shallow earthquakes (depths smaller than 19 km.) with
magnitudes (Md) between 3.6 and 5.2. Locations of the events are given in Table 2. Spectral
ratios have been computed using the HVSR technique (Figure 7). We have used events for
which the signal to noise level is larger than 3 in the frequency range 0.5-20 Hz. The selected
window has duration of 15 second beginning 2-3 sec before S-wave arrival. The analysis
included a cosine taper before Fourier transform and smoothing with a factor of 40 using the
window by Konno & Ohmachi, 1998.
Earthquake Date Earthquake Magnitude
Depth
and Time (GMT) Coordinates (Md)
20/10/2006 40.2519N-27.9792E 16.7 5.2
24/10/2006 40.4221N-28.9937E 7.9 5.2
25/10/2006 40.3698N-29.0059E 10.7 3.6
19/12/2006 40.3400N-28.3200E 18.5 4.2
Table 2. Recorded earthquakes in BYT01 (location parameters were taken from AFAD-ERD).

Fig. 7. The HVSR results of four earthquakes.

A dominant frequency around 5 Hz is observed for events 20061020 and 20061025 in the
HVSR results (Figure 7). The BYT01 station is very close to the microtremor point Nr. 05

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234 Earthquake Research and Analysis – New Frontiers in Seismology

which shows on Figure 4b. We found the dominant frequency at 5 Hz on point Nr. 05 and
these two earthquakes are related to the result of microtremor point and they show similar
results. In Figure 7, events 20061024 and 20061219 show different dominant frequency,
between 2 Hz and 4 Hz.

6. Conclusion and discussion

The 22 values of dominant frequency and maximum relative amplification (HVSR) were
used to draw the contours shown in Figure 8. The contours of dominant frequency values
coincide with surficial geology (Figure 8a), the maximum amplification values vary between
1 and 5 (Figure 8b).

Fig. 8. (a) Dominant frequency and (b) HVSR map of the study area.
Figure 9 shows examples of ratiograms obtained at two different sites. In each case, the top
pannel shows the three-components of ambient noise: The bottom pannel shows the
calculated ratiogram and the right pannel shows the average HVSR. The gray scale on the
right represents the values of the time-dependent HVSR in both ratiograms. In the first case
(Figure 9a), the average HVSR does not show a dominant frequency. The flat response is
seat with an amplification level approximately equal to one. In the second case (Figure 9b); a
clear dominant frequency of 1.2 Hz appears throughout the duration of the records.
Ratiograms like these have been calculated for the entire data set.
In general, the smaller values of dominant frequency show that (1-2 Hz) correlate with
alluvium and Neogene sediments. Peaks at larger frequencies are correlated to Paleozoic
and metamorphic rocks. Our measurements show that there are transient zones between
different geologic structures (alluvium and Paleozoic rocks).
The map of fundamental soil frequency derived from free-field microtremor measurements
should be confirmed by independent information from boreholes, geophysical investigations
or earthquake recordings in the future, since the interpretation of microtremors is restricted to
identifying the resonance frequency and gives no information on the amplification of seismic
ground motion. The HVSR provides an estimate of the bandwidth over which the ground
motion is amplified. This is especially important for any microzonation.
Three-component microtremor measurements were conducted at 22 sites in the northern
section of the Bursa city, where the different geological structures in the study area outcrop.
The fundamental frequencies of the sediments show a range between of 0.5 and 20 Hz. The
lower frequencies (below 2 Hz) correspond to the Holocene and neogene deposits overlain

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Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara Region, Turkey) 235

by alluvium, forming a small basin.The higher frequencies correspond to Paleozoic and

metamorphic rocks. However, variations over short distances are large.
In addition to microtremor data, earthquake records were also used to compute HVSR. The
HVSR analysis of four earthquakes and microtremor at 22 points gives similar results: Dominant
frequencies and spectral ratios correlate well with geological structures in the Bursa city.

Fig. 9. Two examples of ratiograms and average HVSRs obtained from microtremors
recorded at stations a) 18 and b) 20.
Microtremor measurements at 22 points and analysis of contribute valuable preliminary
microzonation and site response information. However a more complete study of city-scale
earthquake hazard, it is still necessary. More microtremor points and events are necessary to
understand site response in Bursa City.

7. Acknowledgements
This research is a part of PhD study of Elcin Gok. We thank to the Earthquake Research
Department of Presidency of Disaster and Emergency Management Directorate (AFAD)
belongs to the Prime Ministry of Turkey for their data support. We also appreciate to Zafer
Akcig, Senol Ozyalin and Zulfikar Erhan for facilitating our works in the field. This work
was supported by BAP of Dokuz Eylul University (Project Nr. 2006.KB.FEN.007).

8. References
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 Earthquake Research and Analysis - New Frontiers in Seismology
Edited by Dr Sebastiano D'Amico

ISBN 978-953-307-840-3
Hard cover, 380 pages
Publisher InTech
Published online 27, January, 2012
Published in print edition January, 2012

The study of earthquakes combines science, technology and expertise in infrastructure and engineering in an
effort to minimize human and material losses when their occurrence is inevitable. This book is devoted to
various aspects of earthquake research and analysis, from theoretical advances to practical applications.
Different sections are dedicated to ground motion studies and seismic site characterization, with regard to
mitigation of the risk from earthquake and ensuring the safety of the buildings under earthquake loading. The
ultimate goal of the book is to encourage discussions and future research to improve hazard assessments,
dissemination of earthquake engineering data and, ultimately, the seismic provisions of building codes.

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Elcin Gok and Orhan Polat (2012). Microtremor HVSR Study of Site Effects in Bursa City (Northern Marmara
Region, Turkey), Earthquake Research and Analysis - New Frontiers in Seismology, Dr Sebastiano D'Amico
(Ed.), ISBN: 978-953-307-840-3, InTech, Available from: http://www.intechopen.com/books/earthquake-
research-and-analysis-new-frontiers-in-seismology/microtremor-hvsr-study-for-site-effect-in-bursa-western-
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